Cancer in Context

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It is with great sorrow that we learned that our much beloved and admired colleague, Debra Sherman, died yesterday morning in Chicago after battling lung cancer for more than a year. Deb’s signature mix of humor and moxie made her a fierce reporter and wonderful friend to so many of her colleagues around the world. She covered healthcare for more than a decade, breaking news on the medical device industry and writing considered pieces on such subjects as the rising financial toll posed by a cancer diagnosis.

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Pain arrived for another too-long visit recently, so I called on my palliative care doctor to get relief. Pain has been an exhausting, debilitating aspect of my cancer, affecting me primarily in my ribcage, on the right side. This is the site where my stage 4 lung cancer first was diagnosed. If it weren’t for the pain I felt in my ribs I never would have known I had cancer, and it’s still my only symptom.

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Exercise is good for cancer patients, doctors these days say. That’s an about-face from just a decade ago when they urged patients to conserve their flagging energy. My oncologists tell me to exercise as much as I can, as long as it’s not causing pain. Otherwise there are no limitations, no matter the patient’s age, type or stage of cancer.

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I’ve seen the same dentist, the same gynecologist and the same internist for years, even decades. They are competent, and nice enough. But I recently dropped my oncologist because, in part, I didn’t love him. And I need to. After all, my oncologist has my vulnerable life in his hands.

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Debra Sherman has covered healthcare for Reuters for more than a decade. Prior to that, she covered corporate news, financial and derivative markets, including the London stock market, when she worked out of the London bureau in the mid-1990s.